Postcards from the Clueless.
By Jim Conley • Jul 16th, 2007 • Email This Post to a Friend •
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Here’s Brookline Selectman’s Chair Gil Hoy reporting on his inquiries into the Brookline Farmer’s Market debacle:
“I have checked further into this and there is no merit to this rumor. The Selectmen discuss this license fee once per year, and we have not discussed it since last year. The amount of the fee must be approved by the Selectmen.
No one has even discussed the numbers being circulated around as a possible license fee, and this is something that Town staff would not propose nor would the Selectmen ever approve it.
If there is to be an increase at all, it would likely be modest.
Hope this clarifies things.”
Yeah, it’s as clear as a pail of slop.
Um Gil, your Board discussed it on May 22 of this year…in an open meeting. And at that meeting you were presented a memo on how much the town loses in parking revenue due to the farmer’s market being on the lot. To be fair, the minutes of Brookline Selectmen’s meetings are so cryptic that it’s hard to tell exactly what went on. But Gil, you were there, presiding and all.
And why, for the love of God, would the director of the Market meet with a DPW flunky to “convince him to change his ways (i.e., charge her market fourteen large for 2008) if he hadn’t proposed it…ever?”
I believe Mr. Cole is right. Politicians who do mess with popular farmer’s markets will see themselves voted out of office [see previous post]. Hoy and Selectman Nancy Daly (both up in May) are off to a good start.
Jim Conley is publisher of On Brookline.
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Selectman Hoy talks about a “modest” increase. Going back to 1973 when we bought our home, there have been “modest” property tax increases - bringing our taxes from just under $2,500 in 1973 to about $22,000 the fiscal year just ended. The rising tide of “modest” increases sinks all homeowners and may result in a fallow farmers’ market in Brookline. I wonder if Hoy or some of the other financially astute Selectmen have ever thought of a “modest” decrease? Perhaps Hoy and Daly are not worried about losing the farm vote come next May; but they should worry about losing the votes of consumers of farm produce.